Promises Keep (The Promise Series) (15 page)

“Steady,” he murmured into her mouth. “Just relax into my hand.”

She gathered the last of her courage and gave herself to him. His thumb drew slowly across her nipple, pushing her control. It was now or never to protest. It took everything she had, but she didn’t move, didn’t jerk away. She put her faith in him, his promise, and held on.

And it got better. The uncertainty remained, but the fear receded. She was able to stay still beneath him, feeling his finger stroke her nipple, feeling fleeting shivers of something radiate out from his touch, and then, when her lungs burned with the need to draw a breath and her fingers ached from their grip on his shoulders, he pulled back. “Breathe.”

She did, hard shuddering breaths that hurt as much as they relieved. It was only as her breath stabilized that she realized she was still staring into his eyes and he didn’t look displeased.

His thumb stole over her lips, smoothing the moisture from the corners. “I’m satisfied.”

He was satisfied. The unspoken question of whether she was, hung between them. She had to make a decision. Cougar or one of a hundred other men. She looked out the window, beyond the trees, to where the frothy clouds shifted and regrouped as the winds tossed them this way and that. They made the best of what they had, and they endured. She could do no less.

She brought her gaze back to his, studying every nuance of his expression as she asked, “If I’m with child, do you promise to love him or her as your own?”

“Yes.”

“Even if the baby doesn’t look like you?”

His hand dropped to her stomach. His eyes didn’t flinch from hers. “Any child of your body is mine in my heart and in my mind. Anyone who implies differently will have to deal with me.”

“You promise?”

“I promise.”

She’d never find a better hedge against future harm. The day Cougar McKinnely broke his word would be the day they’d be making snowballs in Hell.

Feeling like she was stepping off a cliff she said, “I’ll marry you.”

Three little words and Mara sealed her fate. Outside, the birds still sang their happy songs, and the sun still hung yellow and bright in the morning sky. It was only she who felt changed forever.

* * * * *

“Well, young lady,” Doc said a half hour later, straightening Mara’s nightgown. “I’d say you’re well on the road to recovery.”

“Thank you.” It was all she could do to squeak out the one syllable. She’d never been so embarrassed in her life as when Doc had lifted her clothes to look at her ribs. She felt the bed shift as Doc stood. The quilt settled lightly over her chest.

“You can open your eyes now.”

She shook her head, keeping them tightly closed. “I’d rather wait until you leave the room.”

“I don’t know whether this will reassure you or not, but I haven’t lost a single patient to embarrassment yet.”

She could tell from the tone of his raspy voice, Doc was smiling. “I might just be your first.”

“Nah. Heidi Bickle was seven shades redder than you when I examined her during her first pregnancy.”

She cracked her right eye, just wide enough to see Doc’s ear-to-ear grin. “I take it she didn’t just poof off in an embarrassed rush to see her maker?”

“Far from it. She gave birth to her seventh child last month.”

Mara cracked her left eye and studied her tormentor. “You’re not going away, are you?”

“Nope.”

“Rats.”

“Lots of folk feel that way.” Doc took the ladder-back chair from against the wall and set it perpendicular to the bed. His knees cracked as he sat in it. He rubbed the left one, as he said, “Getting on in years.”

Mara smiled and levered herself carefully up against the pillows. “Not that I can tell.”

He smiled, reaching for his pipe. “Ah, a diplomat.”

“I’m trying to get out of any future examinations.”

Doc poured tobacco from a pouch into his pipe. With his forefinger, he tapped the mixture down. “I’ve still got to take the stitches out of your head in a week.”

“Can’t I do it myself?”

“Only if you’re double-jointed.”

“That’s a no, right?”

He smiled around the pipe stem. “That’s a no.” His left eyebrow arched in her direction. “Mind if I smoke?”

What was she supposed to say? It was his house. “No.”

The sound of the match rasping against his boot was loud in the silence. The smell of spice and tobacco filtered through the room as Doc puffed three times before pointing the stem in her direction.

“You agreed to marry the boy.”

“Yes.”

“Of your own free will?” The chair creaked as he shifted his weight.

“Yes.”

Doc put the pipe back in his mouth. “Tough decision?”

She grimaced. “Very.”

“He point you out any options?” he asked around the stem, one bushy eyebrow raised in a way that made her think of his son.

“No.”

That inspired a smile. “Didn’t think so.”

“You find that amusing?”

“Yup.” He blew another smoke ring toward the ceiling. “You’d think so too if you knew Cougar the way I do. The boy’s got a fair streak a mile long and six deep.”

Mara watched the ring drift in an ever widening circle toward the whitewashed ceiling until it disintegrated into nothingness, and said nothing.

“You don’t believe me,” Doc asked.

“Not really.”

“Can’t say that I’m surprised, but when you’re ready, you’ll see signs.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

He chuckled. “For now, I guess you’ll have to.”

Mara stared at him, the way he seemed so comfortable sitting in that chair, as if he had nothing better to do with his time than to while away the hours, blowing smoke rings and telling tales. She didn’t believe it for a moment.

“Did you want to talk to me about something?”

“As a matter of fact, I do.” He rocked the chair back onto two legs. “You don’t have to marry Cougar.”

He could have knocked her over with a feather. “What?”

Doc smiled gently around the pipe he had clenched in his teeth. “You have options, Mara, whether Cougar felt obliged to offer them or not.”

Mara pushed her hair off her face and grimaced. “I don’t particularly want to marry the Reverend either.”

Doc chuckled and crossed his ankle over his knee. “I can see the wisdom of sticking with the devil you know, but marrying Swanson wasn’t what I had in mind.”

A flutter of hope made itself known in her chest. “Just what did you have in mind?” she asked cautiously.

“You are more than welcome to stay here with Dorothy and me.”

She didn’t realize she’d been holding her breath until she let it out on a disappointed sigh. “I overheard Dorothy say my only option was to marry.”

“I’ve no doubt you did,” Doc shrugged, “but there are a couple of things you’ve got to understand about my wife. She’s a good woman, but it fair grates her nature to see young folk walking around unhitched. The other thing is, she dotes on Cougar.”

“And what Cougar wants, she does her best to see he gets?” Mara asked, unable to keep the resentment out of her voice.

Instead of taking offense, Doc laughed outright. “Not quite.”

He blew another smoke ring, this one not so perfect due to the smile tugging at his lips. “A couple of years ago, Cougar went and got engaged to a young woman named Emily Carmichael.”

“No doubt a totally respectable woman.”

“That’s about all she had going for her,” Doc said, surprising her. “I thought Dorothy was going to bring down the roof when Cougar announced his intentions.”

“What did she have against her? Didn’t she come from a good family?”

“Yes.”

Recognizing a cue when she heard one, Mara asked, “Then what was the problem?”

“The woman was about as useful as dandelion fluff, and, Lord, could she whine.”

“Whine?”

“She whined if Cougar was late to pick her up. She whined when he messed her hair. She whined if it was too hot, too cold. Hell, the woman whined even if it was just right.”

“You didn’t like her either.”

“Nope.” Doc’s teeth clenched around his pipe stem before he uncrossed his legs. His boot made a soft thump as it landed on the floor. “The more I got to know her, the more she wore on me. I think she wore on Cougar too. If his honor hadn’t been involved, I think Cougar would have been out of the engagement three months after he got into it.”

“People break engagements all the time. My mamma was engaged twice before she married my father.”

“Maybe it’s different for a woman. Maybe it’s how the boy grew up, but honor is everything to Cougar. Once he gives his word, he’d rather die than break it.”

That was good to know seeing as how she’d gambled her future on Cougar’s word. “Cougar mentioned Emily died a year ago?”

Doc took a puff on his pipe, grimaced, and set it on the bed stand. “Gone out,” he offered by way of explanation. The chair creaked as he settled back in it. “The girl died last year in a flash flood.”

“How terrible!”

Doc ran his hands over his hair. “To my way of thinking, the terrible part is, she didn’t need to die at all.”

“I’m sure she couldn’t help a flood.”

He sighed, ran his hands over his hair again and then finally said, “I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, but if the woman wouldn’t have been so worried about getting her new dress wet, she needn’t have died at all. And I wouldn’t have come within inches of losing my son!”

His vehemence took Mara by surprise. It must have shown on her face because Doc waved his hand in her direction. “Forgive me. There was no reason to go on about that just to explain why Dorothy wants you for Cougar. Not when the answer is so clear.”

Mara raised her eyebrows. “It is?”

“Yup.” Doc rolled to his feet. “Dorothy believes you’ve got the guts it’ll take to make Cougar’s dreams come true.”

“And you don’t agree.”

Doc turned to her in surprise. “Oh, I agree. I just don’t like to see anybody railroaded into anything.”

Mara smiled. “You’re a nice man.”

“Well, I expect you won’t have to go far to find someone to tell you different.” His grin defied the statement. “Still, you keep in mind that you’re welcome to stay with Dorothy and me. No matter how that ruffles folks’ feathers.”

By folks, she assumed he meant Dorothy and Cougar.

“Thank you. You don’t know how much that means to me.”

He nodded and headed for the door.

His “I expect I do,” lit a warm ember in the chill of her despair, but despite Doc’s offer, she knew she had to marry. To take him up on his offer would only delay the inevitable and bring shame and ostracism to the only people who’d ever shown her kindness. And that she simply would not do.

Chapter Eight

What she would apparently do was sit still while Cougar gathered everyone around for a hasty wedding that seemed as unreal as her agreement to marry him in the first place. She sat in the bed while he stood, his only compromise to her insistence that she be upright. In her hands, she held the bouquet of roses he’d handed her. All she’d had time to do with her hair was run a quick brush through it, because when Dorothy suggested they put it up, Cougar had turned those intense eyes on her and said, “No.” Dorothy had been upset, but he had stated in the low drawl that brooked no argument that she was beautiful the way she was, and had gone out to get the flowers.

So, now she sat in bed, her groom on her left side, Doc and Dorothy on the right and the Reverend Swanson at the foot, bible in hand, and she was getting married. This was not how she’d pictured her wedding.

To Cougar McKinnely, of all people.

He said his vows, steady and sure. No doubt in his voice, and if it’d made sense, she would have said satisfaction in his gaze as he glanced at her. When the Reverend came to the part in the ceremony where rings were to be exchanged, he stumbled to a halt, his glance flicking between Cougar and Mara.

“We can just skip that part.”

Her objection was overridden.

“No.” Cougar caught her hand in his. His skin was warm and hard under her palm. She looked down as he slipped a gold band on her finger. It was smooth and heavy and glowed softly against the backdrop of his dark skin. There were intricate carvings across the band that rubbed against the inside of her fingers as he closed his fingers around hers.

Dorothy leaned over and the small frown that had been pleating her brow, dissolved. “Your mother’s ring?”

Cougar tightened his fingers over Mara’s. “Yes.”

She had the crazy desire to rip it off. She couldn’t live up to the expectations that came with a man giving his bride his mother’s ring, but another hand came over her free one. She glanced up to see Doc looking at her, his gaze understanding. Doc squeezed her hand.